I'm interested in international relations, American foreign policy, climate change, US presidential elections, public debate, Kansas Jayhawks basketball, film, and major league baseball.

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Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Fact checking the Veep Debate

Via Josh Marshall, Vice President Cheney goofed last night when he sent debate viewers to a website to gather information about Halliburton:

Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smoke screen. They know the charges are false. They know if you go, for example, to factcheck.com, an independent website sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details, with respect to Halliburton.

Apparently, the Vice President wanted to send viewers to factcheck.org. Their server seems to have been overwhelmed today, so perhaps the correct message was relayed quickly.

If I were Soros, I'd put some Halliburton information on the front page. It is true, for example, that as head of Halliburton Cheney did argue for lifting sanctions against Iran (and Libya) and a company subsidiary is under investigation for violating the sanctions during his tenure of leadership. Cheney did not deny these claims in the debate.

Are they important? I report, you decide.

Blogging note: These days, I hardly ever link to Marshall's Talking Points Memo, even though I read it virtually every day and like it very much. I presume, however, that many if not most of my readers already read TPM regularly. Plus, Marshall very rarely engages with low-profile bloggers like me, so there's not much chance of opening a dialogue.

I don't do as much linking to other blogs as I should either, largely because of my work habits. I tend to write posts during the day, then spend free time (typically late at night) reading other blogs.